Copy/Paste from Grid Behavior Changes from SQL 2008 to 2012 - by AndrewTuerk

Status :

Description

SSMS 2012 copy/paste from grid to Excel has changed some default behavior as compared to SSMS in 2008/2008 R2. When running a query with results to grid, if your data has a carriage return or line feed in it, the paste into Excel (2010 or 2013) will result in a split to new row when using SSMS 2012. In 2008 or 2008 R2, the carriage return or line feed will simply display as an extra space in your data in the cell. While it is debatable as to which is "right", and of course the data itself should be cleansed, this new default behavior poses an issue for a user. The expectation is that the # or rows will be unchanged when copying to Excel. In SQL 2012 SSMS, low ascii characters are displayed as though they are blank spaces, further causing issues for troubleshooting for many users. For a more precise example: http://andrewtuerk.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/sql-2012-copypaste-creates-rows/

Assign To

I am sorry, but when a user copies 1 record from the database and pastes that record into a spreadsheet the only reasonable expected result is one row I the spreadsheet. When the content of a table column represents multiple paragraphs of text there s no rational that that data is "dirty" and thus needs to be cleansed to remove the line breaks. Further, if there is an argument to split the text into a spreadsheet, then the additional lines of text from the cell should appear in multiple rows but I the same column as the first line of text. This is especially true when there are multiple columns in the table that are nVarChar(max) and each has multiple paragraphs of text.

Thank You,Norm Derrick

Posted by Microsoft on 5/6/2013 at 1:36 PM

Hello Andrew. This issue is being tracked in a different connect item. Please look for updates here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/735714 Please let us know if you have any questions. -Walter A Jokiel, Program Manager, SQL Server (wajokiel@microsoft.com)

Posted by Microsoft on 5/3/2013 at 9:47 AM

Hello Andrew. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We really do appreciate the feedback. We’ll investigate and get back to you. -Walter A Jokiel, Program Manager, SQL Server (wajokiel@microsoft.com)